Real-Life Relationship Reality Check

Building and maintaining strong relationships can be one of the most rewarding yet challenging aspects of life. Whether it's with a partner, family member, or friend, the connections we forge can bring us the most intense joy we will ever experience.

A couple enjoying quality time in a cozy living room.

Understanding What You're Up Against

Many relationship coaches work really hard trying to build trust, communication, and love back into relationships. However, that is not the only factor that needs to be repaired. I've noticed that people don't have a full grasp of reality. When I say this you immediately think I'm talking about someone who struggles with mental illness or past traumas. In actuality, we all come from different worlds which causes us all to have a different concept of reality. Let me give you an example: some men think that sports are peak happiness and they have to watch each and every game or they lose something they can’t get back. Most women can’t understand this concept and they chalk it up to “guy stuff”. In having that mentality (on both sides) you have already created massive issues in your relationship whether you realize it or not. It’s no different than men saying the same thing about women who only want to go out to dinner, see shows, or watch sitcoms. A man can simply say “that's just a female thing”.  Meanwhile, women actually like those things for an almost endless amount of reasons.  

What our minds will do is create a concept of the reality that is easy to understand and classify these things as a “nothingness” issue, and then forget about it. There’s no further diving into the partner’s real reasons for falling in love with these things. Mainly we do this because we think we know everything about a person or that the answer is simple and superficial. Men don't like sitcoms and females don't care for sports. It’s seen as a fairly common standard, so no one thinks twice about the why and how of it. Sometimes, we begin to pretend that we like things when we really don't, simply because it fits a specific narrative. What we're doing is creating these pockets of false realities that begin to compound (sometimes daily). You're essentially digging a deeper hole every day. It's why people can be married for more than a decade and wake up one day feeling like they don't know the person they married. Some of the struggle stems from basing your relationships off of movies or tv shows, and thinking that what’s portrayed is or should be real. Real relationships, though, are so much deeper, more complicated, and better than what movies can ever portray. This barely scratches the surface of this concept, but it puts you on notice. Just because you think you know what’s real and where you/your partner are, doesn’t mean that your sense of reality actually lines up with your partner’s sense of reality.

I told my partner that I want to “push the limits on love”. I wanted to make sure she was full of joy, not just fleeting happiness from circumstance. If we go on a date, I want the focus to be one hundred percent on us. It’s not so she can tell her friends and family about the time we had or to post on Facebook/Instagram. For love to be real then money, status, pride, and ego shouldn't even be a whisper of consideration. Otherwise, how can you ever get to the point where you’ve lost everything (no job, a house fire, a miscarriage, eviction, etc.), but you can still hold close to your partner and not suffer the loss of that as well? A relationship is family building, even if it's just the two of you. In that, you're up against the world. I want to give people what's real because it lasts, it's strong, and it's always unforgettable. To be honest, it doesn't make the world a better place, it makes it the greatest place.